Challenges in the South African education system arise from inter alia inadequate training, social and
environmental problems, parental inefficiency, insufficient professionalism among teachers, as well as
negative attitudes of learners. An urgent need exists to establish “a moral underground, an army of
volunteers” (Jansen, 2012) who would be willing to provide another chance to “abandoned children” in
poorer schools to develop their full potential for a brighter future. To assist learners to achieve a better
future, this study focused on teacher-students and to enhance their learning experiences and consequently
their teaching performance. By motivating the teacher-students to develop their potential in
order to achieve better, they could, in turn, break the barriers of mediocrity in the learners they taught.
The aim of this study was to uncover how a social network service (SNS) like Facebook could be
used as an academic tool to support and enhance the affective learning experience of open distance
teacher-students in the rural Eastern Cape. The main research question which guided this study was:
How can the affective learning of open distance learning teacher-students in the rural Eastern Cape
be supported through academic Facebook? The research intervention which elicited data, comprised
coaching and scaffolding of the learning content relating to research methodology, as well as guiding
the participants to engage with an SNS as a learning technology in an academic environment. The
researcher created a support group on Facebook where participants could, at any time, interact with
peers and the facilitator. Non-probability purposive sampling selected the participants according to
the following criteria: isiXhosa home language speaking teacher-students from the rural areas around
Queenstown in the Eastern Cape, enrolled with NWU for a BEd Honours degree, and who owned cellular
phones which could connect to the Internet. While 74 teacher-students were invited to participate
in the research, only 34 attended some of the coaching and scaffolding sessions, and 22 joined
the FaceFunda group page. This qualitative bounded case study was conducted from a postmodern
pragmatic view. Data were collected through individual interviews, a focus group interview, text from
the FaceFunda group page and the researcher’s reflective diary. The data were analysed with Atlas.
ti™. Three patterns emerged which described participants’ affective experiences: (i) emotions
while learning with technology, (ii) experiences with technology, and (iii) need for support. In each
case, the patterns related to emotions of competence (codes that captured positive and enabling experiences),
and emotions of incompetence (codes that captured negative and incapacitating experiences).
A secondary analysis of the findings uncovered the guidelines for the academic use of Facebook
for rural distance teacher-students. Four themes emerged as guidelines: i) coaching and scaffolding
support, (ii) technological support, (iii) peer support, and (iv) communication with the higher
education institution. The guidelines highlighted that the affective learning of open distance learning
of rural teacher-students in the Eastern Cape can be supported through the academic use of Facebook.
ODL teacher-students require support coaching and scaffolding in order to adopt the use of
SNSs for academic purposes. Adult learners should be supported to overcome technophobia to enable
engagement with learning content. With adequate supportive measures, SNSs can contribute
towards positive learning experiences of rural students. / MEd (Learner support), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NWUBOLOKA1/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/12233 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Bester, Maria Petronella |
| Source Sets | North-West University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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